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It's crazy that a 60 ton metal airplane can just fly (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago by Buttflapper@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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I flew for the first time on a plane last week and I've seen planes take off at the airport. It looks crazy. But being on one is totally different like holy shit. The thing just FLIES. It just.... Soars... Through the sky! Like whoa man. Wtf... It's crazy. With how much these things weigh, it's insane to me the thing can just go up and bam, there we are, we're flying now. Like wow... Dude crazy.

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[-] passiveaggressivesonar@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

Airplane engines have deceptively high thrust, imagine each one as a rocket and it'll start to make sense. The a380 (the big double decker) each engine produces around 350KN. When that thrust is applied to an 80kg human they'll experience almost 450Gs of force

In an extreme sense, imagine putting a little rocket engine on a paper airplane which will represent a high thrust to weight ratio

[-] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Your last description is essentially the idea behind the F-117a. That thing ~~isn't~~ wasn't flying, ~~it's~~ it was achieving escape velocity.

this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2024
461 points (96.9% liked)

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